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Thursday, June 2, 2011

Heard Any Good Books Lately?

It's June (wow!) And June is audiobooks month (who knew??)

I love audiobooks. Having grown up in a little town where it took at least an hour to get anywhere and at least four hours to get anywhere metropolitan I've spent a lot of time with audiobooks. I have some very special audiobook memories - listening to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five made me a lifetime fangirl and Anne River Siddons' Downtown mirrored my own experience of leaving home and moving to a city for my first job out of college. I associate listening to characters' journeys in audiobooks with my own journeys and that makes for a truly unique and memorable experience.

To celebrate the joy of listening to stories I'm giving away two copies of the Nightshade audio book! To enter leave a comment telling me a favorite book you heard instead of read (it's okay if it was read to you rather than being an audiobook).

41 comments:

Ah since I have a brand new love of audio books (past two months) I would have to go with The Piper's Son. Michael Finney read it in such a way that I was laughing and crying like a mad woman in the car. I would love to listen to Nightshade.

Favorite book I was read...as a child...(I've never had an audiobook) was The Cat in the Hat :) I hope that counts! haha. I'd definitely love to get an audiobook though--it'll give me something to do when I work out :)

I haven't quite gotten into audiobooks yet. I never liked listening to people reading to me as a kid because I was antsy and always felt that I could read faster than they could speak, lol. But, I do remember a teacher reading us the book "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and really loving that one.

I have listend to all of the Harry Potter audio books! LOVE THEM! Also I have just recently listened to Where She Went on audio book (I read the book first but wanted to the audio experience and LOVED IT). I love the way audio books give you a whole view on the book! LOVE THEM! Thanks for the giveaway!

I love audio books! I loved listening to the Sookie Stackhouse series, narrated by Johanna Parker! She does such a fantastic job! I also really, really enjoyed listening to Shade & Shift by Jeri Smith-Ready (narrated by Khristine Hvam).

I was recently captivated by a non-fiction book: Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". Being narrated by the author gave his final chapter, touching on his own family, an extra poignancy.

I love audio books - I get some through Audible and many more through our local library. The only downside is that I almost always only listen to them in the car. This means that the book has to stand up to a lot of interruptions!

I've not been a huge audiobook fan, but Sophie is slowly but surely getting me to listen to more audiobooks sets. I have fallen in love with Cassandra Clare's City of Fallen Angels set. I can't wait to listen to the Nightshade and Wolfsbane sets.

I love audio books. I LOVE THEM. I listen to them while I work 8 hours a day. It is the best way to get in my "reading" time! The best one I have heard and not actually read the book was "the Day the Falls Stood Still" by Cathy Buchanan. Thank you so much for the chance to win this book!! (I actually won an ARC of Wolfsbane on a blog but did not respond back in time so I did not get it. I was so bummed out)! THANK YOU!

All of the Karen Marie Moning Fever Series books,I loved reading the books and then listeneing to them whenever a new book was coming out in the series. It sometimes gives you a different perspective of the book if you read it yourself and then listen to how someone else reads the book.

That is a really tough question because I really really love audiobooks. When I first started working at my current job I had an hour and a half commute to work. I was doubtful about audio at first, but when I listened to that first book I was hooked and couldn't stop. Now I have a 10 minute drive to work and I still listen. If I can only pick one, my favorite book that I have listened to would have to be Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why. The book was superbly done and very well suited to the format. Both narrators made me believe they were telling their own story.

I don't usually listen to audiobooks because I'm not in cars a lot (although I live in a small, rural town! I hate cars though.) but when I am going to a city with my mom, we usually listen to a Stephanie Plum book. Those are so hilarious--whether you read or listen to them!

I'm not a big audiobook person because I don't have a long commute and I love turning the pages of a book. The only audio of a book I've listened to was a combination CD of a few excerpts from YA books given away by Carrie Ryan at the RT Convention in LA. I'm definitely willing to give Nightshade audio a go! :D Awesome giveaway!

Anything in the In Death series by J.D. Robb. The narrator, Susan Ericksen is amazing. Each character has their own unique voice and she can change her voice to fit a man or woman, young or old and pull off any accent without sounding stuck up like some do when faking an accent.

I'm also a fan of your narrator, Rebecca Lowman. I recently listened to her on the audiobook for Nora Roberts's Chasing Fire.

When I was little my mom always read me the Little House on the Prairie books.

I haven't listed to many audiobooks because I didn't realize that I would enjoy that until this past fall when I listened to The Hunger Games. It was great hearing it. And I discovered that audiobooks can be good for when you are cleaning the house ---- unless you forget to work and just sit and listen! :)

My grandmother used to read aloud to me in German, 'Manxmouse: the mouse who knew no fear' by Paul Gallico when I was a kid, but the first acutal audiobook I listened to, was sometime later, and it was 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone' by J.K. Rowling!

I don't listen to audiobooks very often, but I recently went on a road trip and had the pleasure of listening to 2. The first way The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephanie Meyer (not as good as I wanted it to be) and the second was First Test by Tamora Pierce which was fabulous!

My favorite audiobook would have to be Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, though I enjoy all the Harry Potter audiobooks. However, my favorite book ever read to me is one of the first books I ever heard, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. My mom used to read it to me all the time when I was little. It was "our" book and will always be special to me.

Ah, audiobooks. How I love thee... Truly, I don't know how I'd make it to Mississippi to visit my momma every few months without them. They make the monotonous drive a lot less... well, monotonous. LOL! One of my all-time favorites is "When He Was Wicked" by Julia Quinn. Simon Prebble narrates, and wow, does he do a great job. Love the British accent--makes it so much more authentic!

Last trip home, I listened to The Hunger Games, and loved it. Next up? Someone mentioned Clockwork Angel, and I adore Cassandra Clare, so... I guess I'll be checking that out! :)

Ooooooo! I would love Nightshade audiobook. I'm like a kid who loves to listen to stories when I go to bed. My all-time favorite, I think, is Neil Gaiman's Stardust (I love the way he reads), but I listened to Alice Hoffman's The Probable Future many times, too.

To me nothing was better than hearing my mom read my the Giving Tree when I was small. I love children's books that come with audio as well for my daughter, Earl Jones reading Abiyoyo is mesmerizing for adults and children.I'm looking forward to the audiobook of Nightshade it's my favorite book of 2011!randi@mommyreview.com

My favorite book I've read is the Twilight Saga. I always hated reading but I saw the movie first and read the books and from there I was inspired to write my own books and now I'm trying to get published :) Since then I've been a total book worm and I'm writing my second book.

I love listening to almost everything I've ever heard. I grew up with tapes and switched to CDs when the time came, and since then I have been listening to them every morning—they're like a wake-up call for me. Sadly, since I have recently moved, I have stopped listening to audio stories so often, but that doesn't mean I love them any less! :PAnyway, I think that probably my favorite audio book was...um...gosh, there are soooo many! I love Full Cast Audio's performances (mainly Graceling). I also grew up with Trini Alvorado's reading of the Song of the Lioness quartet, which I have practically memorized. Audio book are like a part of me, and there are just so many. But I think Alanna would be my favorite, if I had to choose. :)

Believe it or not I never listened to audio book BUT have always wanted to. But the best most funny book ever read to me was by my 2nd grade teacher.She read Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, and the whole class would be in laughing fits cause she did such a great job and was so animated:) I am now 30 years old and still remember this very vividly:)

I drove from Los Angeles to Vermont last August. I started the journey with Suzanne Collin's Mockingjay, and was laugh-crying so hard that I had to pull over twice! Once I finished that book, I made it through the first five in Richelle Mead' Vampire Academy series. It was an amazing week long road trip where I never felt alone because I had all of those characters in the car with me.

When I was 14 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out. My mom bought it for me a day or two before we went on a 12 day road trip. I can't read while in a vehicle so my cousin volunteered to read it for me on the entire trip. Only problem was that he already read it and spoiled the ending for me!

Listening to Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone" was creepy, thrilling and mesmerizing all at once. Hearing about Ebola in humans and monkeys while driving to work, it's a wonder I didn't wreck my car. And give me Jim Dale anytime reading Harry Potter.

RISE (Nighshade Origins #2)

SNAKEROOT (Nightshade Legacy #1)

INVISIBILITY (co-authored with David Levithan)

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While other teenage girls daydream about boys, Calla Tor imagines ripping out her enemies’ throats. And she wouldn’t have it any other way. Calla was born a warrior and on her eighteenth-birthday she’ll become the alpha female of the next generation of Guardian wolves. But Calla’s predestined path veers off course the moment she saves the life of a wayward hiker, a boy her own age. This human boy’s secret will turn the young pack's world upside down and forever alter the outcome of the centuries-old Witches' War that surrounds them all.

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Author of YA/Crossover speculative fiction. Represented by Charlie Olsen and Richard Pine (InkWell Management). I'm originally from the Northwoods of Wisconsin (it's not the Midwest, it's the Canadian Shield) but have recently migrated to Manhattan.
Before I began writing full time, I was a professor of history, and I spend a lot of time thinking about worlds beyond this one. Worlds of the past, worlds yet to come. The first writing projects I undertook were plays performed for our parents by my little brother and myself in our living room. Sometimes these pieces involved puppets made from brown paper bags. More recent WIPs are speculative fiction, YA, and children's literature.